


Hunger For An Earthly Banquet

by tiltedsyllogism



Series: Word Made Flesh [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Clothed Sex, Dirty Talk, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Frottage, History of Interpretation, M/M, Problems in Exegesis, Sherlock's voice is sex, Shir HaShirim | Song of Songs, Smut, Squabbling, Voice Kink, the further adventures of Bible Porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-26 03:44:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3835762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiltedsyllogism/pseuds/tiltedsyllogism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of their highly satisfying bible-inspired phone sex from the week before, Sherlock decides that it's time that he and John engage in a bit of in-person bible study.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunger For An Earthly Banquet

**Author's Note:**

> a thousand thanks to alpha beta [HiddenLacuna](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddenlacuna/works) for helping me flesh this thing out (hurr hurr hurr) and to [patternofdefiance](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tiltedsyllogism/works) for lending her sharp eyes before posting!

John was fairly confident that Mrs. Hudson could change a lightbulb as well as he could. He was absolutely certain that Sherlock could do it better than either of them, with his bloody long arms. But it was John on the step stool, of course, with his left hand going numb above his head, while Mrs. Hudson stood below, clutching the glass dome. Meanwhile, Sherlock stalked uselessly around the perimeter of the room. He was giving off all the typical flourishes of being stylishly, impatiently brilliant, which made sense at a crime scene (even when he was just performing for the police, and not actually making deductions) but made less sense in Mrs. Hudson’s living room, which was familiar territory to both of them. John paused, and passed the old bulb from his left hand to his right so he could shake the ache out of his wrist. What was Sherlock up to, anyhow?

“Perhaps screw it in a bit more tightly, dear,” Mrs. Hudson said, in that kindly tone that meant she thought he was being a bit slow.

John forced a smile. “Working on it, Mrs. Hudson.” He went up on his toes and gave the bulb a cautious twist.

“I know you are, dear.” She patted his calf, nearly causing him to pitch over. “Sherlock?” she called out. “Why don’t you help John with this lightbulb?”

“Dull,” Sherlock declared. “Besides, I like to keep John on his toes.”

“Sherlock,” she chided.

“His reach should exceed his grasp, after all,” Sherlock continued, clearly enjoying the game.

Mrs. Hudson clicked her tongue disapprovingly. John clenched and unclenched his right hand, and then pushed up to his toes again to give the bulb a final firm twist. Mrs. Hudson clapped as the room went bright, and John dropped his arm in relief.

“Oh, how wonderful,” she effused, “what a difference that makes!” 

John, caught between embarrassment at her gratitude and irritation at Sherlock, rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s really nothing,” he said, climbing down from the stepladder.

“Oh, nonsense. At least I can give you some scones. They should be cool by now, I’ll just….”

“No time for that,” Sherlock broke in, seizing John by the wrist. “Glad to help, but we’ve got to get going.”

“Sherlock,” said John, “don’t be rude.” He quite wanted a scone.

“Yes, terribly rude, I am _so_ sorry, but nonetheless.” He tugged a very nettled John toward the door.

Mrs. Hudson wasn’t fooled by Sherlock’s normal-people smile, but she also knew a losing battle when she saw one. “Later, then. I’ll have plenty left.”

“See you in a bit,” John said, and hoped that was enough of an apology. 

John had expected an explanation once the door to 221a was closed, but instead Sherlock stayed silent and determined as he dragged John up the stairs. “Sherlock,” John snapped, as he was shoved through the door to their own flat. “What—”

Sherlock slammed the door to 221b and then turned toward John, his face alight with a rare, lopsided grin. “John,” he declared, “our trip downstairs was a success.”

John smiled tightly. “Course it was. I replaced her lightbulb.” He rolled his shoulder. “No thanks to you, mind.”

Sherlock’s smile became smug. “I was busy,” he said, conspiratorial. He reached into his jacket pocket and drew out a small, thick, leather-bound book.

“So what’s that, then?” John asked. Not that he cared much, since it wasn’t a scone.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and pointed to the gilt lettering on the cover. “We haven’t one of our own, so I nicked Mrs. Hudson’s.”

John’s eyes widened. “Sherlock! That’s got to be a family heirloom! You can’t just take –”

“Evidently I can, since I did,” Sherlock replied. “And if you’re moralizing again, consider it payment for services rendered. A bit of housework for the loan of a bible.” He gave a wolfish grin. “Don’t think she would be pleased to know that we’re planning.”

John was suddenly uneasy. Also aroused. Why was he aroused? “Wait, what are we…” a moment too late, John’s brain caught up with the rest of him, and he recalled the details of their phone sex from the week before, and Sherlock’s offhand comment about the possibility of future bible-based sex experiments. “You’re not serious.”

Sherlock frowned. “Why wouldn’t I be? It’s a time-honoured text.”

John actually stepped backward. “It-- Maybe, Sherlock, but _not_ in the…. like this.”

Sherlock shook his head. “ _No,_ , actually, in exactly this way. There’s a reason the church fathers attempted to keep people from reading this book. Did you know that….”

“No, stop.” John was sure he didn’t know, but that was fine. He was fine with not knowing a lot of the things that Sherlock knew. “I get it. You want to have more, uh, bible sex. That’s fine. We can do that, Sherlock, okay?”

“Excellent.” Sherlock toed off his oxfords, flipped open the book in his hand, and began flipping through the pages. 

John frowned. “So wait, we’re doing this now?” The fluttering sound of the delicate pages briefly reminded John of Sunday childhoods spent in a hard pew, which was not what he wanted to be thinking about when Sherlock was gearing up for sex.

“Yes, of course,” Sherlock said impatiently. “Unless you’ve got _something better…_ ”

John laughed shortly. “No, of course not. I’ve got no life of my own. Just planning to lay about at home on the off chance that you might want to have sex.”

Sherlock scowled. “You’re the one who’s concerned about returning the bible before she notices.”

John hated it when Sherlock read his mind like that. “Fine! We’ll do it now.”

“Fine!”

They glared at each other a moment – Sherlock’s knuckles white around the cover of the bible, John’s hands jammed fiercely into his pockets – before Sherlock looked away. “Unless you don’t want to,” he said.

John sighed, his anger melting slightly. He knew when he was being played, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t working. “No, it’s good. It’s fine.” He laid his hands out in front of him. “So where do you want me?”

“There,” said Sherlock, and pointed to John’s chair. John sat, and Sherlock immediately made a face. “No, there.”

John sighed and moved to the sofa. 

Sherlock’s face twisted again, but John held up his hand. “No. Just… stop. I’m sure we’ll manage just fine from here. What next?”

“Now take off your shoes. I’ll read.” John bent down to untie the laces on his trainers while Sherlock found his place in the bible. “All right. Here we are. ‘The song of songs, which is Solomon’s.’” He swallowed, assumed a stern sort of expression, and then dropped it and held the book out to John. “Unless you, uh, want to…”

“No, no.” John held up his hands. “This is your project.”

“All right.” Sherlock cleared his throat again, then stepped closer to the couch, looming over John . “‘Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,’” he read, “‘for thy love is better than wine.’” Sherlock leaned down to give John a slow, lavish, open-mouthed kiss. John’s body went warm, and after a moment his hands came up to tug at the front of Sherlock’s tight-fitting black shirt. Damnit. He needed to get better at staying angry at Sherlock. This couldn’t-- 

Then Sherlock’s tongue stroked his, and John decided he would start working on that tomorrow.

Sherlock eventually broke the kiss to stand up straight again. John felt the urge to reach out and touch Sherlock’s growing erection through his trousers, but resisted; this was Sherlock’s event, after all.

“‘Because of the savour of thy… good… ointments, thy name is as an ointment poured forth, therefore...’” Sherlock’s voice took on a skeptical curl, “do the virgins love thee.’” 

John sniggered, which earned him a scowl from Sherlock, who pointedly returned to the text. “‘Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers.’”

“All right.” John stood up. “Seems pretty clear. Your bedroom?”

In response, Sherlock marked the page with his finger and, tucking the book under his arm, pulled John to standing, giving him a quick kiss as he did so. “So I am the king,” he said smugly.

“Nobody who’s met you would doubt it,” John returned, swatting his arse. “Let’s go.”

Sherlock followed John into the bedroom and pulled the door shut while John sat on the bed. Sherlock sat down next to him, and pushed John gently over until they were both reclining on their sides. Sherlock leaned in for another languid kiss, then drew back abruptly. He had lain down on the bible, John realized, and was trying to pull it out from underneath himself without getting up. Sherlock jerked his arm awkwardly in an attempt to dislodge the bible, and John watched in amusement as Sherlock struggled to unspool himself.

“Oh, shut up,” Sherlock snarled. John stopped smiling, but only because he had begun to worry about Mrs. Hudson’s heirloom.

By the time Sherlock had managed to lay the book out in front of himself - undamaged, for which John was relieved - he was in a right snit, and John’s arousal had subsided into a dull wariness about the prospect of a temper tantrum. John reached out and brushed a curl off of Sherlock’s temple. “Go on,” he said. “Please.”

Sherlock’s face was still sour, but he pulled the bible toward him. His brows drew together as he found their place, mumbling to himself. “Here it is. ‘We will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee.’”

“Huh,” John said. “Should we stand up again?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Don’t be idiotic. We’ll skip that bit.” His voice thinned again, as if he were reciting for an elocution class. “‘I am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the –” he flipped the tissue-thin page “– curtains of Solomon. Look not upon me, because I am black….’”

“Seems a bit racist, doesn’t it?” John put in.

“It’s the bible, John, it’s full of hideous and outdated ideas.”

“Then why are we reading it to get ourselves keyed up for sex?”

“Because the Song of Songs is supposed to be, I don’t know, a masterpiece of sensuality,” snapped Sherlock. “But I agree,” he added, more calmly. “This isn’t… exactly what I had in mind.”

“Maybe we could flip ahead to the good parts,” John suggested.

Sherlock nodded and turned the book so that they could both read. 

John skimmed, looking for sexy bits, or at least for phrases about kisses or skin.

“What’s ‘spikenard’?” he asked.

“Aromatic root,” Sherlock answered absently, his eyes clearly several verses ahead of John’s. John returned to reading. There was a promising line about breasts – not that he or Sherlock had those, really – but then it was back to fragrant plants (at least, he thought so – myrrh was a plant, wasn’t it?) and some birds and gazelles.

“At least your bed is green,” he commented, patting Sherlock’s emerald bedspread.

Sherlock turned to him in annoyance. “Are you going to take this _seriously,_ or are you just…”

“Yeah, okay, sorry.” Chastened, John returned to the page.

“Okay, here,” declared Sherlock. “‘As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I saw down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.’”

“His fruit?” John grinned, and leaned in for a kiss. Sherlock caressed his cheek and then broke away to resume reading. “‘He brought me into the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.’”

John leaned in for another quick peck. “Can we say your bedroom is still part of the banqueting house?”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” said Sherlock, a touch impatiently. “‘Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.’”

“Hang on,” John said. “I thought you said there were no apples in the Bible.”

“I said no apples in _Genesis_. This is a different word entirely - probably a quince, not an apple - but it’s the association of apples with desire in _precisely this book_ that led early theologians to associate sexual desire with the destruction of mankind, although….” Sherlock cut himself off with a grimace. “Really, John, do we really have to do this _now_?”

“No, sorry,” said John. “Let’s….”

But Sherlock had already pushed the bible away in annoyance, and had curled himself into a sitting position, grabbing his hair in frustration. “Why isn’t this _working_?” he said, flat and angry.

John sighed, sat up, and draped an arm around Sherlock's waist. "Maybe we're thinking about this wrong. Maybe we need to, ah, not be so literal about the whole thing."

“You're the one asking about apples," Sherlock said, bitterly morose.

"All right, I'll stop. But look, I'm just not sure how we're supposed to come up with sexy talk out of, out of vineyards and farm animals and doves." John patted Sherlock’s shoulder. “We _could_ just have ordinary sex, you know.”

But Sherlock was now staring at the bible intensely. “Maybe we _have been_ looking at this the wrong way,” he said. “What if….” He pursed his lips and frowned at the page. “What if we read it as a sort of code?”

“Okay.” John thought a bit. “So the, uh, the perfume is, um, kind of like…”

Sherlock waved a dismissive hand, before John was forced to settle on a particular bodily fluid. “Don’t be crass. What if it’s about desire in a more general way?”

John contemplated this. “So I’m a farmer in the ancient… in biblical times, and when I look at goats and vineyards, I see, what, wealth. Security.” He paused, thinking. “Yeah, I - it makes sense.” It didn’t yet, not quite, but John trusted Sherlock. 

“In the context of a militarily vulnerable desert culture,” Sherlock murmured, “those things would be an essential precursor to a civilized existence. Fields, farms, flock, they would create a margin for the, ah, the finer things. Music and poetry and, um, pleasure.” He traced a finger along John’s instep. 

“Oh?” John replied, keeping his voice light. “I thought you weren’t much for poetry.”

“We’re not talking about me,” said Sherlock. He had dropped his voice to that low, melodic hum that John found so hard to resist. “We’re talking about the denizens of ancient Mesopotamia.” Sherlock glanced down at the text, and then back up at John. “Is this all right?”

“Of course,” John answered. “What’s next?”

Sherlock hummed, his voice like dark velvet, and read out: “‘His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.’”

Before John lifted his arm - before he had even realized that he meant to lift it - Sherlock’s hand was at his wrist, holding it in place. “Not yet,” he said, almost too softly for John to hear. “It’s not literal. It’s about wanting.” He drew a deep breath. “Do you want me, John?”

John was in pretty deep with Sherlock - he didn’t need reminding - but this might have been a new level. If anyone else had tried to talk to him about biblical sociology, John would have drifted off in half a minute, but here he was with palms sweating, thinking about goatherds getting a leg over under the grape arbor.

“Yes.” John’s voice was barely a gust of sound. “God, yes.”

With one hand gentle on John’s foot and the other stroking circles on his wrist, Sherlock leaned back over to the bible. “‘The voice of my beloved! Behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains.’”

John’s own voice was husky. “You know what it does to me to hear you talk, right?”

Sherlock smiled at John through his fringe and dropped his eyes back to the book. “My beloved spake, and said unto me, rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.’” His hand went softly still on John’s ankle, as if to caution him against actually getting up. But John was way past the literal words, hanging on Sherlock’s voice, on his light teasing touches. 

“‘For lo,’” Sherlock continued, “‘the winter is past.’” He lifted his hand from John’s wrist and undid the top button of his black shirt, briefly stroking his own clavicle before replacing his hand on John’s wrist.

John’s own hand drifted forward and began to run along Sherlock’s thigh. “This… Is this.. is this all right?” he choked out.

“Yes,” said Sherlock, in a bare whisper, his leg muscles gone exquisitely taut under John’s light touch. He swallowed and released John’s foot to draw the bible closer.

“‘The flowers appear on the earth, the--’” Sherlock’s breath caught as John’s hand brushed closer to his groin, and the fabric pulled slightly tighter under John’s fingers. “‘The time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.’”

John filed away “voice of the turtle” as something to look up later, and took advantage of Sherlock’s discombobulation to slide a bit closer. “Keep going,” he murmured.

“‘The fig tree putteth forth her green figs,’” Sherlock read, his fingers now plucking absently at John’s cuff. “‘And the vines with the tender grape give a good smell.’”

“So a good smell, is that like, um… when you’re dizzy with wanting something, yeah?” John breathed, as he moved in still closer, almost on top of Sherlock now.

“Possibly,” Sherlock returned, equally breathless. Sherlock ducked to the side - away from John, why away - and cast his eyes over the page, squinted with a burst of focus, and then slid himself back under the curve of John’s body.

“‘O my dove,’” he said - reciting, almost chanting - and John realized that he had scooped up the whole next passage into his memory. “‘That art in the clefts of the rock,’” -- John’s brain went fuzzy for a moment, thinking of the shadowed hollow of Sherlock’s throat -- “‘in the secret places of the stairs. Let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice….” Sherlock paused to catch his breath again as he leaned back onto his elbows, letting John crawl forward over him. “‘For sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.’”

John walked his arms forward until he hung suspended over Sherlock, staring down at him. Sherlock’s shirt was open at the throat, and he had undone a single button on John’s shirt cuff. Other than that, they were fully clothed. John was rock hard in his jeans, and they were both panting fiercely. John’s arms trembled; he wasn’t sure how long he could hold himself up, and it was hard to remember why he shouldn’t be touching Sherlock.

Sherlock’s eyes caught his, and John couldn’t help giggling a bit. “I guess desire was the ticket,” he said. “So what’s next? I, uh…” he swallowed, the laughter vanished. “I don’t know how much more desire I can take.”

Sherlock’s face creased with warmth, and with that perplexing expression that made John feel hot and cold all at once. “‘Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines,’” Sherlock recited. His voice had become unsteady. He paused, then continued, “‘for our vines have tender grapes.’”

“Oh god.” John dropped his head against Sherlock’s shoulder and struggled to breathe. “Oh god, Sherlock, can I…”

“Yes,” Sherlock gasped out.

John meant to open Sherlock’s trousers, meant to undo the flies of his own jeans, but the next thing he knew he was frotting desperately against Sherlock, mouthing at his neck while he pushed his cock against Sherlock’s. Too much fabric, but it didn’t matter, they were finally touching. He breathed in the musky scent of Sherlock’s sweat, ran his tongue along the soft shell of Sherlock’s ear, and a moment later felt Sherlock pull desperately at his hair as he wailed through his orgasm. John clutched Sherlock’s hip with his right hand and gave two hard thrusts before his abdomen exploded in pleasure, his entire body convulsing as he rode out the spasms that sang through his blood.

John’s hips were still stuttering as he collapsed on top of Sherlock, damp with sweat and dripping with languorous satisfaction. Beneath him, Sherlock gave a rich chuckle.

“Pleased with yourself?” John asked.

“Of course,” Sherlock replied, voice gone slow as it did after sex. “You’re quite pleased with me too.”

Overwhelmed by affection, John nuzzled under Sherlock’s chin (which was where his nose happened to be) and planted a light kiss on his salty skin. “I think you cracked the code,” he murmured softly. “That was fantastic.”

Sherlock hummed in confirmation. “Did you know,” he added dreamily, “there are eight chapters in the Song of Songs.”

“Are there?” John was in a genial frame of mind, and feeling particularly generous toward the Song of Songs at the moment, so he didn’t mind a bit of trivia.

“Eight chapters,” Sherlock repeated, still dreamy. “We only made it through two.”

“Oh.” John was slow, but he got there eventually. “Oh, I see.”

“I thought you might.” Sherlock began stroking John’s back idly. “Perhaps there will still be scones tomorrow.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic comes from [Origen of Alexandria](http://www.iep.utm.edu/origen-of-alexandria/)’s preface to his commentary on the Song of Songs. Like many early Christian (and rabbinic) commentators, Origen was worried that spiritually untrained readers would get caught up in the Song of Songs’ ostensibly carnal themes and be led astray, and not appreciate that the text is _really_ about the soul’s desire for God. 
> 
> Origen expands on Paul’s food metaphor in 1 Corinthians 3 (a metaphor which also gets picked up in Hebrews 5), in which Paul describes the Corinthian church as spiritual children who must be fed on milk (i.e. soft theology) because they aren’t yet ready for meat, which is tougher but more nourishing (i.e. complex and challenging spiritual truths). Origen picks up on this food analogy, arguing that human beings are portrayed throughout scripture as possessing both a physical outer body and an inner spiritual one. According to Origen, the true meaning of the Song of Songs becomes clear once one realizes that it describes the experiences of inner man. But it’s meat, not milk; spiritually immature readers can’t be trusted to realize that it’s about God, and not about sex. 
> 
> So the joke here, of course, is not only that Sherlock and John are struggling to find the sexy dimensions of a text which, to Origen and other readers in late antiquity, was evidently (and dangerously) smutty, but that they end up developing a second-order, non-literal method of reading the text in order to find the thread of meaning they’re looking for… which, in a sense, is what Origen is arguing that the spiritually mature reader will do. A friend of mine, who has been in fandom for a long time, told me that this was possibly the most elaborately nerdy premise for a porn fic that she had ever heard of. it's nice to have found my metier, I guess.


End file.
